Elder Russell M. Nelson

We had a fantastic day yesterday. Our whole mission met in Rotterdam for a conference. We were really blessed by the day. Elder Russell M. Nelson, and his wife Wendy Nelson were the keynote speakers. Also speaking were Elder Christiaan H. Kleijweg who is a Seventy and Area Authority along with his wife as well as Elder Erich W. Kopischke Europe Area President and member or the First Quorum of the Seventy. The spirit was amazing to say the least. It was a more relaxed atmosphere than general conference and Elder Nelson even took questions from the audience. (Now how often does that happen?)

Elder Nelson, his wife Wendy and Sister Sherry Dew were all here to attend a world conference in Amsterdam on the Family. An extra day was added to their trip to spend the time with us as a mission. President Brubaker our mission president told us that it was a rare event to have so many church authorities all in one semi small meeting with about 175 missionaries in attendance.

It's pretty difficult to tell you all that was said but Elder Nelson ended his talk by giving this mission a blessing. He blessed us to love our mission, also with safety and success, with obedience to our mission president, with the wisdom of discernment and to be rejoined with our families. He blessed our little ones at home and that meant a lot to us. He instructed us to not dwell on past mistakes but to demand more from ourselves and to close the gap between where we are and where we need to be as well as closing the gap between what we know and what we need to know.

It was a really powerful day and it was so good to have all of the missionaries together in one place. I love hearing them all sing "Called to Serve" President Brubaker said it was the first time since he became president that he could safely turn off his cell phone. It was like having us all home and tucked in. We decided it was well worth the five hour drive to attend the conference. Did you know that there are 338 missions and 50 thousand plus missionaries?